that rubbish.
Timmy’s league luck finally ran out, though I have to admit the manager and team I expected to do him weren’t Chris Hughton and Norwich.
The Timmy lovers weren’t out in force on Sunday, I can’t seem to recall many we’ve got our Spurs back
tweets. He didn’t even have the pitch to blame.
Yet again the fixture list was kind to the then lucky Timmy as Norwich had only picked up one victory in their last 11 league games, during which they’d gone 312 minutes without scoring a goal. Hughton was on the brink of the sack and the players were hiding.
Then along came Dim Tim and his clueless kick it and run around a bit plan and it’s all smiles again for Delia’s mob.
Just over 30 seconds in and the first aimless long, diagonal hoof up the park from Dawson to nobody in particular, well nobody in a white shirt, gave us a rather big clue as to what was going to come. The rest of that opening 45 minutes amounted to very little else. Gormless humps up to the big guy, as Timmy released his inner Sam Allardyce stroke Tony Pulis.
Quite fitting that John Hurt was watching in the crowd as this was ugly, very ugly, elephant Man ugly.
Of course it might have worked if Timmy’s luck hadn’t run out. If some of those gormless hoofs had been close to Adebayor, not 10 to 20 yards away and if those that actually did find their target found a player who was bothered. Adebayor on the other hand was in full couldn’t trap a bag of sand mode.
The Timmyites, or more precisely the anti-AVBites claimed the latter was lucky because Bale got him all those points last season. You know when under AVB they got the most points any Spurs side has managed since football was created with the Premier League. They keep bringing it up when you mention without Adebayor where would Timmy’s team be.
The problem being that under AVB, Bale contributed 37.8%, of goals and assists, Adebayor’s ratio under under Sherwood is 52%. According to this Tweet.
Adebayor in full lazy mode, or inept mode, or just not as lucky as he was against the likes of Newcastle and Timmy is screwed. Because there isn’t anything coming from anywhere else. As the rest of outfield moped around like they really didn’t want to do what Timmy had told them.
Yes they’d come back from a long European trip midweek and have struggled after such but it wasn’t as if Norwich were that brilliant in the first half. The midfield were missing in action and the back four were either, again, inept or in a pouty strop.
When you go in at half time and of the attacking players only one, Bentaleb, has more touches than Lennon. Then you’re in trouble. When it’s Naughton and Rose with the most touches out of the lot, it’s real trouble.
But people were still holding onto the fact Spurs had been slow starters under Timmy and things would come good after the break. That lasted 2 minutes as Bentaleb gave the ball up easily after some clueless Chuckle Brothers passing – to me, to you – ball’s played into the middle where there’s no white shirts, through the back four who are all over the place and past Lloris.
Lloris poor Hugo. From clean sheet after clean sheet, he’s been getting used to see the ball going past him through inept defending. Though even with conceding he’s still along with Adebayor the major factor that’s helped Timmy’s luck. Everton, Newcastle even Norwich here could have done better bar Hugo’s brilliance.
But how long will he stick out, especially if nothing changes? And how many will follow him out the door come the summer?
While Spurs needed some creativity, some guile, some skill, especially from the middle of the park what did we get? Nothing. Chadli had come on early for the injured Capoue but it was screaming out for something more.
Screaming out for say a Holtby, oh he’s at Fulham, screaming out for a Lamela, oh he’s somewhere, we don’t know where, nobody is saying, screaming out for Eriksen. Ah yes Eriksen he’s available. Available to sit on the bench for the second straight league game. Bizarre.
Just before the hour mark came round I noticed something on one of the stats sites. Deja vu all over again. Just like the Everton match an hour was about to pass and Spurs had mustered a whole 2 shots of which none were on target.
They screeched that Spurs were dull under AVB.
It was about the 80th minute before the first shot on target. 80 minutes. This was Norwich not Barca. They ended with a whole 2 on target, both from Chadli. While Soldado came on and missed a couple of decent chances, he’s wild shot into the side netting was one he should have scored from. He Defoed it but Defoe wouldn’t have got the abuse Roberto did.
They’ve destroyed yet another good player. All those writing him off not looking at those players that take time to settle. Modric, from being ranked the worst signing of La Liga last season to running Madrid this as they sit top of the league. They were happy to offload Bale at the beginning, Boateng was rubbish, as was Kaboul.
Timmy probably came out with some post match crap with that snide look on his face, didn’t stick around to find out. It’s not as if Norwich were outstanding, they didn’t have to be Spurs were that rubbish that relegation fodder only had to be at 75% or even less to stop them from shooting, scoring and keeping a clean sheet.
A decent manager with this squad and the way things are going no European distractions next season will achieve something. But what chances those good players won’t have buggered off for European football while we’re left with Adebayor, Rose, Naughton, Dawson and Bentaleb?
And what chances any decent manager would want the job? Van Gaal is talking himself up after the World Cup, but a notoriously chippy bugger how long realistically would he put up with Levy and the way the club functions?