Three and in – not just another football blog

For Spurs, breaking the top four monopoly in 2009/10 was a momentous achievement. And with it came a highly rewarding Champions League campaign, taking in a thrilling victory over the holders, Inter Milan, before bowing out to Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid.

There was little disgrace in losing to the battle Real – a side that cost hundreds of millions to assemble. Harry Redknapp, never slow to justify his occasional failures, will doubtless make the same point about the tussle they’ve just lost to Man City over that invaluable Champions League spot.

A year ago, a Peter Crouch header ensured it was Spurs who embarked on that voyage in to the stellar climes of the Champions League. Last night, his own goal confirmed that City will replace them. The form of Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool means that Spurs may now miss out on the Europa League too.

There is an air of inevitability about City’s ascension – it would require remarkable mismanagement to spend that much money without any discernible success, and despite his conservative tactics Mancini is clearly no fool.

However, I wonder if Spurs fans feel a tad uneasy about how easily they’ve relinquished a prize they fought so hard to obtain. Granted, City have spent money, but Spurs had something more valuable: poll position. For the last twelve months, they have been a Champions League club, and City haven’t. In the summer, that advantage enabled Spurs to pull in big names – the likes of Rafael van der Vaart and William Gallas, both of whom have been inspired signings.

And yet, in January, Spurs were strangely inactive, moving only to snare Stephen Pienaar from Everton – a good player, but not one who was not evidently needed. The weakness in the Tottenham squad has been clear all season: they have lacked goals from their strikers. Whilst the likes of Bale and Van der Vaart have chipped in, Crouch, Defoe and Pavlyuchenko have been erratic. Robbie Keane was shipped out to West Ham on loan, where his poor form has continued. And yet nobody came in.

Tottenham did make a few haphazard deadline day moves, throwing money at half the clubs in La Liga in attempt to bring in the likes of Guiseppe Rossi, Fernando Llorente and Alvaro Negredo. But it was unplanned and unproductive.

It was also unusual for Harry Redknapp, a manager known for his transfer market acumen. Perhaps he wanted to escape the shackles of his ‘wheeler-dealer’ reputation. Perhaps the Spurs board were more interested in raking in the Champions League money than investing it in the squad.

Or perhaps they felt it was pointless, and that City’s riches meant they would perennially be fighting a losing battle.

Spurs lost the fight on the pitch last night. But in many respects, it was lost off the pitch in January. With City now having both the money and the status they desired, it looks a long way back for Tottenham.

Pea-shooter a deadly weapon
18 goals from 37 appearances would be more than good enough for Javier Hernandez in his first season in English football. When you factor in that of those 37 games, only 20 have been starts, his record become even more impressive. The fact that the Premier League’s top scorer, Dimitar Berbatov, has fallen behind Hernandez in the pecking order speaks volumes for the Mexican’s potential.

It could get worse for Torres…
…in the short-term. Ultimately, it will get better. Form is temporary, but class is permanent, and there’s no doubting the Spaniard has that in bags. Last night, however, he seemed to crumble under the weight of expectation. Not only was Chelsea’s entire season in the balance, but the fact he hasn’t yet scored in blue is clearly strung about his neck like an obese albatross, and judging by his impact as a sub Didier Drogba would almost certainly have been a better bet. Not even facing his favoured opponent Nemanja Vidic could revive the Spaniard. I suspect we may not see the best of Torres until United have the title in the bag too and the pressure is well and truly off. Only then he can he concentrate fully on integrating in to the side.

It’s too soon to sack Ancelotti
If you believe some of the rumours on Fleet Street, not even a victory last night could save Carlo Ancelotti’s job. I have to say, I find the idea of sacking a manager who won the double in his first season after a solitary trophyless campaign ridiculous. Ancelotti has experience of reigniting ageing sides at Milan. There have been signs in recent weeks that he’s capable of doing just the same at Chelsea.

This “average” United side could win a treble
I have to admit I’ve been waiting all season long for this United side to come a-cropper. Now they’re odds-on to win the Premier League, and in the semi-finals of both the FA Cup and Champions League. It’s a huge testament to a winning mentality instilled in the culture of the club by the manager. If he is able to claim all three prizes once more, 12 years after the Nou Camp, would Alex Ferguson finally decide to go out on a high?

One has to be careful when the saying the title of this post out loud lest somebody assume you were talking about Butch’s urine.

Anyway, it’s half-time in Madrid and Spurs are 1-0 down. Co-commentating with Alan Parry, Ray Wilkins has referred to Spurs constantly as ‘we’. Yes, Ray Wilkins who played for Chelsea, Man United, Milan, Rangers and QPR. The Ray Wilkins who made a grand total of no appearances for them. The Ray Wilkins who was assistant manager of Chelsea. Who are supposed to hate Tottenham.

It was ‘we’ this. ‘We’ that. Yet then, as everyone was asking ‘Why the fuck is Ray Wilkins referring to Spurs as we?’ he told us.

“I say ‘we’ as an Englishman”.

Ahh, that’s ok. So when Ray Wilkins refers to ‘we’ he’s talking about the good English team. The one with all those Englishmen in the starting line-up.

All three of them. Ignore the Brazilians, French, Croatians, Welsh etc. Nice to see Sky replace a lecherous misogynist with a jingoistic nationalist.

Talk about equal opportunities.

The away goal is one of football’s most precious commodities. I remember when United were trailing 3-0 to Real Madrid in 2003. When Ruud van Nistelrooy netted a last minute strike to reduce the deficit, Clive Tylesdley’s joyous shouts of “AWAY GOAL!!!” made you think the Dutchman had converted a clincher rather than a consolation.

As it happened, United went on to get hammered in the second leg too. But Tyldesley was probably still running around the room after Van Nistelrooy’s effort: Away goals have taken on disproportionate significance in European football.

Last night, in a rematch of 2010′s final, Bayern Munich celebrated a 1-0 win at the San Siro thanks to a late late goal from Mario Gomez. After the game, manager Louis van Gaal was bullish about his team’s result. And, of course, that extra bonus: the “away goal”:

“It was a very good game, very attractive and everyone can be happy with the game, it was fun. It must have pleased everyone who watched it. Of course we have a better chance of progressing now because we scored an away goal.”

Whilst Gomez has most certainly scored a goal, and one away from home at that, it comes without the mythical properties that make the ‘away goal’ so valued: it cannot decide the tie. Their is no possible result in the second leg that can allow the ‘awayness’ of Gomez’s goal to prove decisive. It is, sad to say, merely a ‘goal’. Sorry Louis.

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Thanks to @Marcotti for bringing to light this strangest of reactions

Arsenal fans today reacted with fury at the club’s elimination from the Champions League at the hands of Barcelona. Arsene Wenger’s men were roundly beaten just seconds after the draw was made.

“It’s a disgrace”, said Top Gooner from 7, The Internet. “I’ve seen some spineless displays in my time but this was the worst I’ve ever seen. Where was the fight, the spirit?”

His sentiments were echoed by AFC4Lifewhenwewin from Twittersville Avenue. “You could tell from the first minute it was going to be one of those nights. Once again Arsenal were spineless. Wenger out!”

“I agree”, said Bob Misery of the well-respected Doomblog website. “It’s as if Arsenal simply didn’t turn up. How can we have any faith in this team if we’ve been beaten so easily, so quickly? It’s clear that only the arrival of Hiddink or Rijkaard, backed up by the signings of Mertesacker, Jagielka, Shay Given and Joe Hart, as well as Kaka, a young Roberto Carlos, Ibrahim Affelay and Eden Hazard can save us now. Otherwise we’re going to playing in the SPL next season”.

The Gunners now face two meaningless games against Barcelona in February and March 2011 in which Lionel Messi will tear the Arsenal defence a ‘new one’. This is particularly harsh as Messi already tore Arsenal a new one back in April which still hasn’t healed properly.

Once again, this seems to be a common theme this season, the state of the Scottish Football nation is being questioned. The picking of the scab came after Rangers ‘parked the bus’ at Old Trafford in their first Champions League outing of the season.

“UEFA are allowing a situation to develop that is wrong. Bigger clubs in smaller countries are being drastically affected by the lack of finance”, Walter Smith said after the game. It’s a point which has credence but a point which is hypocritical coming from him.

The big clubs in the small leagues can’t compete with the financial might of the rich clubs in the big leagues. A look round the first round games proved this. Chelsea and Arsenal strolled to victories while Real Madrid had 40 shots at goal during their game against Ajax. Ajax won the Champions League in 1995. They don’t have a chance now. However, the big clubs in the small leagues will still dominate those leagues  due to the prize money, or turning up money, they get from UEFA.

Laudrup - not as drunk as Gazza

“We don’t feel proud of the fact that we are doing it but there is nothing else left for us”, pleaded Smith failing to see why this doesn’t wash with most.

In the mid-nineties when Smith was in charge at Rangers he could compete with English and European teams in terms of transfer fees and wages. Guys like Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne were signed in a blaze of publicity suggesting that these players would take them to the next level. They even told us that they would have one team for Europe and another for the SPL.

Problem was Smith has always been a pragmatic defensive minded manager. Even with a decent squad, a squad widely regarded as the best in Rangers history, he failed miserably due a failure to loosen his blazer. At Everton his style was loathed by their fans and some call his time in charge the worst period in Everton’s history.

Smith had an out for his tactics last week. He doesn’t have an excuse for his past and I include the UEFA Cup Final run which saw Rangers become, statistically, the worst side to compete a UEFA Cup final by only winning 2 games out of 9. I have no problem with Smith doing what he feels right. Rangers are quite rightly proud of their point. But what does them earning £15m from just turning up in the hope not to get humped in the Champions League mean for the Scottish Game?

Already this season, Celtic and Rangers are 8 points ahead of the teams in third place. Rangers beat Dundee Utd, cup winners and 3rd place finishers last season, 4 -0 at the weekend with United manager Peter Houston bemoaning his sides “very much self inflicted” defeat.

The talk is of two 14 team divisions as the upper tier of Scottish football with the newly formed 3rd division being supplemented with “B” teams from Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen. The reserve league was scrapped last year as teams, Rangers included, couldn’t afford to fund reserve football.

Any set up has to have an emphasis on young players and allowing clubs to develop young players. The problem is that change, if the turkeys vote for it, will take a generation before the fruits are seen and it will get worse before it gets better. The Scottish game doesn’t do patience.

Hibs manager John Hughes tries to play football the right way but Hibs poor start to the season, 1 – 1 draw with Hamilton on Saturday, has seen him targeted by the boo boys.

“Maybe they think we’re better than we are, maybe that’s the problem”, Hughes commented; quite rightly, as I sauntered down the bookies to put money on him being the next SPL manager to get the sack.

As I said the Scottish game doesn’t do patience.

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Lord of the Wing can usually be found at The Celtic Blog. If he’s not there try Sean Connery’s castle.

Welcome to this week’s round of La Liga action from Week 2 and a look ahead to Week 3.  The headline story from last weekend is, of course, Barcelona’s 2-0 home defeat to league newcomers, Hércules, on Saturday night.  And to a lesser extent, the huge slice of humble pie I must now consume for being so quick to write the Alicante side off in last week’s blog.

In short, Hércules turned up at Camp Nou with a clear game plan and, through outstanding teamwork and unity, achieved a thoroughly deserved win.  There were no excuses for Barça, as was accepted by Pep Guardiola, who refused to blame Spain’s fixture in Buenos Aires the previous Tuesday, and simply admitted his side were unable to solve the problems Hércules caused them and that on the day “they were simply better”.  Paraguayan striker Nelson Valdez was the Catalan team’s nemesis, finding the net either side of half time, firstly with a clumsily struck volley which deceived his (almost) namesake Victor in the Barça goal, following some sloppy defending.  There were no debates regarding the intention, nor the quality, of the second goal however, when Valdez took advantage of the wealth of time and space Barça’s back 4 afforded him, to curl a delightful finish high into the net.  Following my admittedly rather patronising initial opinions on Hércules last week, I will now duly upgrade them to the ‘ones to watch’ category.  Granted, this is hardly going out on a limb, having just seen them pull off a sensational result that no-one else has managed in the league in 16 months, but the La Liga niños, led by Valdez, David Trezeguet (yep, that’s where he is now) and on-loan Royston Drenthe, will definitely cause problems for other teams this year, who have now been duly warned.  Either that or they’ll be complete toss for the rest of the season and make me look like an even bigger idiot than they did last week.  Time will tell, on both counts.

A few hours later, another historic win catapulted Real Madrid above the slain Catalans, Mourinho recording his first league victory in charge since moving from Inter in the summer, beating Osasuna 1-0 at the Bernabéu.  However, as anyone who witnessed the match will attest, it was by and large a dull, dreary affair and Real were far from prolific going forward.  It was left to Mourinho’s fellow Portuguese henchman Ricardo Carvalho to seal the points just after half-time, after a great run from Mesut Ozil teed up Ronaldo, whose shot Ricardo could only parry back to him.  Ronaldo decided to pass rather than shoot – seemingly for the only time on the night – leaving the unlikely hero, Carvalho with the simple task of side-footing into an empty net.

Real’s city rivals Atlético continued their strong start to the season, beating Athletic Bilbao 2-1 to go top of the table, in a niggly encounter in the Basque Country that produced 9 yellow cards, presumably as tempers flared over what the correct Spanish way of spelling ‘Athletic’ should be.  In amongst the acrimony, Forlan and Tiago scored for Atlético before Llorente grabbed a late consolation for the hosts (suspiciously, Forlan again celebrated with his shirt on – maybe he’s grown a third nipple over the summer).

Elsewhere, Valencia beat Racing 1-0 to propel themselves to second and Racing to second bottom in the table, Racing spared last place due to Levante’s 4-1 defeat at the hands of Getafe.  Ex-pat favourites Malaga beat Zaragoza 5-3 away from home, suggesting neither team will do much this season, with that sort of defending.  Conversely, what promised to be an interesting encounter between Sevilla and Depor ended anticlimactically in a goalless draw.

Former Manchester United Italiano Americano, Rossi scored twice for Villareal in their 4-0 defeat of Espanyol, proving himself to be anything but a sloppy Giuseppe (sorry…), with Espanyol having Chica sent off late on, for good measure.  Completing the round-up, Almeria drew 2-2 at home with Real Sociedad whilst Mallorca’s 2,000km round trip to Gijon saw them head back to the island with only air miles to show for it, suffering a 2-0 defeat to Sporting.  

In Week 1 of the Champion’s League, Barça demonstrated their bouncebackability on Tuesday when they began their bid to win their 4^th European Cup by destroying Panathinaikos 5-1 at home, in what was almost the performance of the week (come on, Arsenal were sublime).  With the home crowd fearing a repeat of events 3 days prior, when the Greeks opened the scoring, Lionel Messi decided he wasn’t going to miss out on 2 concurrent win bonuses and turned on the form once again.  Seemingly behind everything Barca did all night, the Argentine scored 2 and created the 5^th for Dani Alves with an exquisite spooned pass.  Despite this, he was still unable to avoid being labelled ‘rubbish’ in an amusingly honest, if not particularly insightful, piece of commentary from Sky Sports, after missing a penalty to complete what would have been his hat trick.  To be fair, it was a rubbish penalty.

Valencia also began their Champions League campaign with a 4 goal win, beating a poor Bursaspor side 4-0 in Turkey.  2 goals from Higuain was enough for Real to open with a 2-0 win at home to Ajax on Wednesday, though Ajax looked a shadow of their former selves.

In the Europa League, Atlético’s run of form seemed to desert them as they began their defence of the trophy with a 1-0 loss away to Greek side Aris Salonika, former Barcelona youth player Javito with the decisive strike to seal the shock result of round 1.  Villareal also lost, 2-0 away to Dinamo Zagreb, in a miserable night that saw captain Marcos Senna sent off for 2 bookings.  Sevilla lost 1-0 at home to Paris Saint-Germain, leaving it to Getafe to salvage some national pride on the night, producing a brilliant comeback to beat Danish side Odense 2-1, having trailed by a goal at half time.  Javier Arizmendi cancelled out his first half own goal soon after the break, before Pedro Rios scored a late free-kick to seal the victory.

So, looking ahead to this weekend’s action the fixtures are:

Espanyol v Almeria (Saturday, 5pm)
Mallorca v Osasuna (Saturday, 5pm)
Sporting Gijon v Athletic Bilbao (Saturday, 7pm)
Real Sociedad v Real Madrid (Saturday, 9pm)
Hercules v Valencia (Sunday, 4pm)
Levante v Villarreal (Sunday, 4pm)
Racing Santander v Real Zaragoza (Sunday, 4pm)
Atlético Madrid v Barcelona (Sunday, 6pm)
Malaga v Sevilla (Sunday, 8pm) 

The matches available on Sky are highlighted in bold.  Although, annoyingly, despite having no fewer than four dedicated sports channels to choose from, Sky appear to only be showing the 2^nd half of Atlético v Barça, preferring to subject us all to Andy Gray’s ‘last word’ on the weekend’s premiership action until 7pm instead.  I for one find it hugely insulting that Sky’s schedulers assume I’d rather watch Andy twat about with that touch-screen gadget that he still doesn’t seem to have familiarised himself with, rather than watch one of the biggest matches of the weekend happening anywhere in the World.  Even worse, the other Sky Sports channels available are showing yank football, a repeat of the 2005 Ashes and International Showjumping.  Showjumping for f*ck sake?!  Still, with any luck the first half might be available via the red button, as it should be a cracker of a game and the first real test of Atlético’s credentials if they aim to compete with the big two this season.

I’ll be back next week to review and preview.  Meantime, enjoy the weekend and what you can of the action from Spain.

Harry speaking about the artificial pitch before Spurs 3-2 defeat to Young Boys:

I think it will suit us, the way we pass the ball. We’ve got players with great technique like Luka Modric. We won’t be making an excuse out of it.

Harry speaking about the artificial pitch after Spurs 3-2 defeat to Young Boys:

You have to get used to playing on it. If you play on it every week you get used to it. I don’t agree with Astroturf and I don’t think Astroturf should be used in a competition like this. I left four out because they weren’t comfortable on the pitch in training yesterday.

Sounds a bit excusey to me and UEFA have rightly dismissed his complaints. What his grumblings do, of course, is distract from Tottenham’s limp performance. Yes, they did well to drag themselves back into it but the tie could have been over and done with had the Swiss taken their chances. It had nothing to do with the pitch, it was because Spurs played so poorly in a game they should have been right up for. It’s all a bit convenient for Redknapp to blame to pitch when the finger should be pointed squarely and his players and him.

And even if we do talk about the pitch it’s a non-issue. Modern astro pitches are fantastic. It’s not like the old days of sand based surfaces that would tear the skin from your elbows and knees at the slightest contact. They cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and are meticulously maintained. Sure, they do lack something that grass pitches do, such as bumps, divots, hills, slopes, bare patches, holes, missing turf and waterlogged sections. It’s tough to cope with all right.

The pitch last night was better than the one at Wembley, for example, and it’s not as if all Premier League surfaces are the same. The ball will roll and bounce differently at the Emirates than it does at Old Trafford which is different to White Hart Lane which is different to Stamford Bridge and so on.

Spurs are still in the Champions League, and I expect them to qualify from the second leg, but Harry needs to work a little harder on his excuse making. Or, better yet, the training ground.