Let's start again

Phew, I was destined to become just another "retired" blogger. Without even a single comment! ...which makes this feel slightly like talking to a mute psychologist. As per time allows, I will make a concerted effort to update once a week.

Hotspur Hysterics

As the summer transfer hysteria heats up to the usual frenzied bubble, I thought it be useful to keep things in perspective by keeping a list of the wide range of players that have been named by THE NOTORIOUS ITKs. I suppose we are guilty of some "selective hearing" though, reporting and believing the rumours that we like the most, regardless of their factual merits. Anyway, here's the list I've compiled so far.

Carlos Tevez
Gareth Barry
Scott Brown
Joe Hart
Mikel Arteta
Glen Johnson
Sylvain Distin
Stuart Downing (sigh)
Michel Bastos
Sulley Muntari
Adam Johnson
Ryan Babel
Tuncay Sanli
Djibril Cisse
Kenwyne Jones
Roque Santa Cruz
Goran Pandev
Dario Srna
Aiden McGeady
Roque Santa Cruz
Ashley Young
Luca Toni
Paul Robinson (!)
Lisandro Lopez
Aly Cissokho
Per Ciljan Skjelbred
Sebastian Bassong
Rutgerus Johannes Martinus "Ruud" van Nistelrooij
Klaas Jan Huntelaar
Moussa Dembele

Just for kicks, Joe Lewis should just step in and buy all of them to see what would happen to the global football economy.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Season over. Cue delusional optimism: next year's the year! Tottenham Top Four! Ronaldinho to Spurs!
(remember that? I worry that one day, years from now, when I'm talking about my White Hart Lane memories to my children, the Ronaldinho rumor won't seem as ridiculous as it did at the time. Either his reputation will fade into Rivaldo-esque territory and he'll find himself playing in Qatar on 200k a week as an exhibitionist, or (less likely) Tottenham will actually be making waves in the Champions League, and attracting players of such a caliber. Either way the punchline of my story about how a lowly, delusional North London club once attempted to sign THE BEST PLAYER IN THE WORLD won't garner the sniggers that i'd like it to, thereby denying me the label of great storyteller.)

Horribly sidetracked. This was meant to be about how much I hate the summer. I think this is a somewhat tired discussion. Every blog you read these days complains about how outrageous some of the transfer rumours are. Who perpetuates this filth? The tabloids? The notorious ITKs? (sounds a bit like a separatist terrorist organization, no?) Doesn't matter really. Because the people who complain about it (like I do) and write posts deploring modern football for its extravagant spending and rumourwhoring will continue to click on the newsnow (ha!) links purporting to disclose the next SPANISH ACE HEADED TO THE LANE!!!!!! I do, you do, hoodoo. The only thing as predictable as a summer filled with anonymous ITKs spewing bullshit all over the web is the reactionary bloggers complaining about them. We've all been hurt at one time or another by a false rumour (mine was Kim Kallstrom, remember that? let's cry together...). Let's get over ourselves and admit that it's scandalous, but we need something to read on the internet after we have finished analyzing the prospects for peace in the middle east.

My complaint this summer is the sheer lack of quality or originality in the alleged links. Are we really still looking at Stuart Downing? really. really? Come on, that's just lazy. If you need something to write about Tottenham's transfer prospects, at least make up something interesting. Saying Downing is coming to Tottenham is like saying Lady Gaga is indeed actually a man. We've heard the rumours, we laughed, we wondered, but frankly we just don't care anymore. Let's get some spice in there like last summer. Where is the David Villa, the Bojan Krkic, the Miguel Veloso, the Joe Cole of this summer?

The most popular link seems to be Scott Brown of the BEST SCOTTISH TEAM IN THE WORLD, SOMETIMES, Celtic. This depresses me in a couple ways. First of all, there are no youtube videos of him doing amazing things. I can hear you groaning already:

"ugghh you idiot, The Ghetto Prince looked incredible on youtube, as did that joker Ghaly. youtube videos mean f-all."
Fine. But so did Berbatov, Modric and Palacios.
"Well Scott Brown isn't that kind of player, he's a scrapper, he's got an engine, he's got a shaved head, he looks like a thug, he's mustard."
You just described Jamie O'Hara. Plus, we've already got an engine in Palacios, who was as good as Modric and Lennon for us this season.

Secondly, what we actually need is either a left-winger (not Stu) which will allow Modric to move inside, or Gareth Barry. Can't believe Man City signed him for 12 million. If it comes out that we didn't match that, and Barry wasn't completely against coming to Spurs, I'm going to tear my hair out. A Modric-Barry-Palacios-Lennon midfield would've been nigh unstoppable.

My only comfort is the Independent's list of Arsenal's potential targets is as boring as ours.

Xabi Alonso, please. Pipe dream? Let me dream, damn you.

Who ze shit is Kingsley Cisse?

Okay okay so Djibril isn't exactly a stranger in the premier league. He's been around a while and has made a name for himself not only as an oft-injured disappointment. He seems to have some class, seems to have been molded in the Adriano (pre-meltdown) ilk - that is, a powerful, fast, imposing presence, good with the ball at his feet, good in the air. I have no problem with the type of player Cisse is, but I have this theory that after a highly touted foreigner comes into the league and is expected to make a huge impact but then never quite does and bounces around from team to team, attracting interest based solely on name recognition, he loses some of the fire and ambition that is needed to make a real, lasting impact in a squad. Harry Kewell, Anelka, Diouf, Henri Camara, Laurent Robert were all such players who seemed to have mounds of potential, but only showed their ability in spurts and will ultimately be remembered for being journeymen rather than great players for a team.

We need players on the upside of their careers, not damaged goods like Cisse and (wtf) Joey Barton, whatever their unique skill set that make them a nightmare for people like you, (Top Four Club).

nil-nil at Goodison

I was certain we were going to lose this one about 55 minutes into it. Wouldn't it be so Spurs to dominate the first half only to fail to complete the moves to score and then lose the grip on the game and capitulate? We almost had that trademark "wonder goal" against us when Gosling half-volleyed from just outside the box and hit the post.
There were plenty of positives to be taken from the first half. We controlled possession and made some good looking attacking moves, started by Huddlestone and Bale especially.
Another solid performance from Corluka/Woodgate/King who are becoming paragons of consistency. Add in Dawson and we should be set at centre-half. Less impressed with Hutton. I could help but start to dislike him when those reports of his near-patricide emerged. I'm sure his dad isn't a great bloke but how do let that kind of an argument escalate like that? especially in a pub? Usually I don't really take notice as to what players do on their own time, but this kind of thing fits into my exception category, along with Ledley King's performance hours after the Carling Cup Final and Giovanni's drunken escapade earlier this season (hmmm i sound suspiciously like a Sun reader, but when you get your spurs news from NewsNow, what can you expect?). Anyway, Alan Hutton could not seem to hold onto possession today. I think it's clear that he's no Gareth Bale in the sense that, despite being good going forward from the right back position, he'll never make it as an out and out right winger. No scandal there, but today he was exposed as being somewhat clumsy with the ball at his feet for too long. He also looks like a bastard.

Corluka has a suspiciously awkward style of running; it's like watching Jar Jar Binks running on cocaine. Pienaar had a good game today, but it never looked like Corluka was flustered by his speed. You always read about Vedran's superb positioning sense (or maybe I just did on Wikipedia), and I suppose we saw it today.

Keane, oh Keane. I feel like we're a bit like Dr. House and his vicodin with this one. It's clearly not good to be addicted to something, but will the withdrawal process screw up our rhythm too much? That is to say, Keane is not being super effective scoring-wise right now, but he does seem to cover a lot of ground, and you always notice him doing something, unlike Bent or Defoe who are notorious for disappearing for long stretches. I've read a couple blogs suggesting that we should've started Defoe and Pav today, just to see how it would work. Defoe had our best chance despite having a bit of a subpar game. Is it worth keeping him on there in the hope that he'll come up with one of those brilliant turn-and-shoot moments like he did in the second half? Most of the time he's larking around in offsideland, so it's a bit of a dilemma.

Pav wasn't too impressive today, as he didn't show much bite or fire when he came on. I guess it doesn't really matter with summer coming up and a new striker sure to be added. I for one hope we get to see the fully-charge version of him next year. I think he's had some great games this year, deserves a proper run at it from the start next season.

Gareth Bale? great game if you ask me. Apparently he's admitted to needing work on his defensive game. If so, that shows some maturity distinguishing him from Giovanni and Taarabt who think they've got the skillz to be first teamers despite their shocking lack of positioning sense which makes them a liability to have on the pitch in long stretches. I think pretty much everyone is rooting for him to rise to the position and supplant Assou-Ekotto on a permanent basis, which is sad since the latter has worked hard to come back from injury and has played pretty well this year, if unspectacular and prone to some bad passing.

Last point is on Gomes. I'm worried that the man will be plagued by the memory of his calamitous beginning to the season. Everytime he makes even a minor mistake (like dropping the ball - looked like he was pushed to me) people will roll their eyes and throw their hands up in the air (much like Redknapp did today). Okay so his Ronaldinho delusion moment was a tad bit tense, but how many times did you see Lehman do that? I jest; that's a horrible example. I think he's a bloody good keeper and he's clearly well-liked by everyone. Keep cudicini for as long as he wants to stay, but Gomes should always be the number one. He's saved a lot of points for us this season, more than his errors cost us by a large margin - go back and look at it.