MK Dons 3-5 Spurs
Niko Kranjcar reminded everyone just what he is capable of as he was involved in four goals during our 5-3 friendly win over MK Dons at Stadium: MK last night.
The midfielder created three and scored a stunner to show Harry Redknapp that his Spurs career may yet have some legs.
It didn't take long for the Croat to get into his stride, releasing Roman Pavlyuchenko with a perfect pass after just eight minutes. The Russian striker beat the offside trap and fired into the top corner to open the scoring.
Kranjcar was at it again 20 minutes later, again creating for Pavlyuchenko, who latched onto another accurate pass and hammered the ball past David Martin in the MK Dons net.
MK Dons regrouped and hit the ground running after the break. Luke Chadwick pulled one back with a curler from 25 yards and Jabo Ibehre stunned Spurs when he prodded home the equaliser in the 72nd minute.
But Kranjcar regained the limelight in style. First his shot was parried by Martin allowing Spurs youngster Harry Kane to put us back in front before Niko unleashed a dipping 35-yard volley that flew past sub keeper Ian McLoughlin to make it 4-2.
Ibehre pulled one back for the Dons before Kane's second of the night guaranteed us the win in the 89th minute but it was Kranjcar who will take all the plaudits and certainly give Redknapp something to think about as the new campaign approaches.
Spurs team (4-4-2):David Button (Archer, 86); Nathan Byrne, Vedran Corluka (Tom Carroll, 82), Milos Veljkovic, Danny Rose; David Bentley, Jake Livermore (Massimo Luongo, 46), Niko Kranjcar, Andros Townsend; Roman Pavlyuchenko, Jermain Defoe (Harry Kane, 76). Subs: Ryan Mason, Jonathan Obika.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Spurs 3-0 Orlando Pirates
It was a case of "Crisis? What crisis?" today as our lads saw off the Bucs to win the prestigious Vodacom Challenge - otherwise dubbed the Tottenham Hotspur Trophy.
Our route to the final was brief and simple, as a 1-0 loss to Kaizer Chiefs and a 1-1 draw with the Orlando Pirates were enough to see us qualify for the showpiece final. Qualify? Who are we kidding? We recieved a bye to the final based purely on the fact we are the mighty Tottenham Hotspur - maybe we should have tried that in the Champions League.
The Kaizer Chiefs were less than chuffed that, despite managing what we hadn't - a victory - they were still knocked out of the competition. Rough justice, but that's the way it goes. Money talks, as do shirt sales, corporate identity and household names.
Most Premier League teams seem to win more silverware in pre-season than during the full season and everyone seems to have at least one title to their name come opening day. But, whilst it's easy to mock a competition organised purely to give our squad a full-ego massage, it did signal distinct progress in our pre-season preparations.
Rafa Van Der Vaart scored twice, including his second free-kick of the tournament, so we know where the goals are coming from in the event that we continue to make no signings whatsoever. Defoe scored a poacher's goal, of which he was incapable last season. And Gareth Bale can still do what he does best, as Defoe's goal came from a pinpoint Bale cross.
So far so good. Add to that a clean sheet for Hilarious Gomes (we're calling him this until we're proven wrong) and a smile, a real displaying of teeth from captain Luka Modric as he lifted the trophy.
See Luka, that's exactly what you can expect next season if you stick about, plenty of goals, plenty of silverware - plenty of smiles. Honest.
Our route to the final was brief and simple, as a 1-0 loss to Kaizer Chiefs and a 1-1 draw with the Orlando Pirates were enough to see us qualify for the showpiece final. Qualify? Who are we kidding? We recieved a bye to the final based purely on the fact we are the mighty Tottenham Hotspur - maybe we should have tried that in the Champions League.
The Kaizer Chiefs were less than chuffed that, despite managing what we hadn't - a victory - they were still knocked out of the competition. Rough justice, but that's the way it goes. Money talks, as do shirt sales, corporate identity and household names.
Most Premier League teams seem to win more silverware in pre-season than during the full season and everyone seems to have at least one title to their name come opening day. But, whilst it's easy to mock a competition organised purely to give our squad a full-ego massage, it did signal distinct progress in our pre-season preparations.
Rafa Van Der Vaart scored twice, including his second free-kick of the tournament, so we know where the goals are coming from in the event that we continue to make no signings whatsoever. Defoe scored a poacher's goal, of which he was incapable last season. And Gareth Bale can still do what he does best, as Defoe's goal came from a pinpoint Bale cross.
So far so good. Add to that a clean sheet for Hilarious Gomes (we're calling him this until we're proven wrong) and a smile, a real displaying of teeth from captain Luka Modric as he lifted the trophy.
See Luka, that's exactly what you can expect next season if you stick about, plenty of goals, plenty of silverware - plenty of smiles. Honest.
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Dawson rubbishes contract disagreement
Michael Dawson has shot down press reports claiming that his is in dispute with the club over wages.
Today's papers say the club captain was offered a contract extension but found the basic wage insulting.
But Michael has moved quickly to dispel the rumours circling around him. He said: "I have no idea where this story has come from - it certainly has not come from myself or any of my representatives.
"I think I have always demonstrated that I am a proud player and captain of this club and nothing has changed in that respect.
"I have an excellent relationship with everyone at this club from the chairman, to the players to the supporters and I wouldn't want false reporting such as this to impact on that.
"There has been absolutely no fallout with anyone whatsoever. I still have four years left on my current contract and no issues regarding it whatsoever. It is an honour to be captain of this football club and my sole focus is on getting ready for the new season with Spurs and, hopefully, England as well."
Today's papers say the club captain was offered a contract extension but found the basic wage insulting.
But Michael has moved quickly to dispel the rumours circling around him. He said: "I have no idea where this story has come from - it certainly has not come from myself or any of my representatives.
"I think I have always demonstrated that I am a proud player and captain of this club and nothing has changed in that respect.
"I have an excellent relationship with everyone at this club from the chairman, to the players to the supporters and I wouldn't want false reporting such as this to impact on that.
"There has been absolutely no fallout with anyone whatsoever. I still have four years left on my current contract and no issues regarding it whatsoever. It is an honour to be captain of this football club and my sole focus is on getting ready for the new season with Spurs and, hopefully, England as well."
Monday, 11 July 2011
The damage is done, so let Luka leave
I'll apologise for the Luka Modric fracas being the continued topic for discussion but Spurs' summer is on a knife-edge and the way we handle this is going to be a defining factor in the direction the club takes.
As usual, the story from each side is strikingly different and it seems that both sides have reneged on promises: Levy may have said he would discuss big offers for the Croatian, but Modric also said he was happy at Spurs and that he wouldn't chase a transfer.
Shielding your eyes from the summer sun and peering down the road to Ashburton Grove, it's painstakingly obvious what happens if you let these situations get on top of you.
The Fabregas-Barcelona debacle has rolled over and over for years, like a rusting old water wheel dredging dirt to the surface every time a transfer window comes around.
You can see the scene in Dubrovnik last summer, when our chairman was desperate for the Croatian to extend his contract…
Modric probably presented his dealbreaker, in which he would be allowed to speak to any big club that came in, Levy probably brushed it off, making a passing comment that "we'll discuss it at the time". Both sides go away happy, Levy knowing he's got his man, Modric feeling his demands have been met.
Until now, a season on, the chairman has forgotten his throwaway comment where as Modric is clinging to it. In fact, not so much clinging to it, as tugging at it and tearing the very fabric of his relationship with Tottenham Hotspur.
The difference with the situation at Arsenal is that, after all these years, they seem to have sorted it. Arsene Wenger has today announced that, while press speculation raged over Nasri and Fabregas seeking summer moves, both of them will now stay put. Simple as that, dealt with behind closed doors and announced with authority.
Tottenham and Modric, on the other hand, are getting into a very public spat. Daniel Levy's initial statement of intent to keep Modric was impressive. A staunch "no" was exactly what needed to go out into the public domain, but in private, he needed to take a more personal approach.
Holding Modric against his will is a recipe for disaster and will unsettle all the team's most important players. This doesn't mean we should let everyone leave whenever a bigger club comes in, but treating him like a decent human being and giving him some rope to play with is far better than a stone-wall "get out of my office".
Levy isn't exactly a man-manager and, if anything, he should probably have let Harry Redknapp do the talking. Tell Modric "give us one more season, see where we're at next summer or, if you're desperate, you can leave in January."
That way, if we get these "two or three big signings", Modric may have a change of heart. Now, however, the damage is done and we have a situation that needs arresting before it spirals out of our control.
Tell Chelsea that if they meet the £35-£40m valuation this month, then he can leave. If not, he's a Spurs player next season. end of. That way, the ball is in Chelsea's court and Modric can see how far his new favourite club are prepared to go to sign him.
But it needs doing right and it needs doing quickly because at the moment, you get the feeling that the knife-edge we're sat on at the moment is in danger of slicing us in two.
As usual, the story from each side is strikingly different and it seems that both sides have reneged on promises: Levy may have said he would discuss big offers for the Croatian, but Modric also said he was happy at Spurs and that he wouldn't chase a transfer.
Shielding your eyes from the summer sun and peering down the road to Ashburton Grove, it's painstakingly obvious what happens if you let these situations get on top of you.
The Fabregas-Barcelona debacle has rolled over and over for years, like a rusting old water wheel dredging dirt to the surface every time a transfer window comes around.
You can see the scene in Dubrovnik last summer, when our chairman was desperate for the Croatian to extend his contract…
Modric probably presented his dealbreaker, in which he would be allowed to speak to any big club that came in, Levy probably brushed it off, making a passing comment that "we'll discuss it at the time". Both sides go away happy, Levy knowing he's got his man, Modric feeling his demands have been met.
Until now, a season on, the chairman has forgotten his throwaway comment where as Modric is clinging to it. In fact, not so much clinging to it, as tugging at it and tearing the very fabric of his relationship with Tottenham Hotspur.
The difference with the situation at Arsenal is that, after all these years, they seem to have sorted it. Arsene Wenger has today announced that, while press speculation raged over Nasri and Fabregas seeking summer moves, both of them will now stay put. Simple as that, dealt with behind closed doors and announced with authority.
Tottenham and Modric, on the other hand, are getting into a very public spat. Daniel Levy's initial statement of intent to keep Modric was impressive. A staunch "no" was exactly what needed to go out into the public domain, but in private, he needed to take a more personal approach.
Holding Modric against his will is a recipe for disaster and will unsettle all the team's most important players. This doesn't mean we should let everyone leave whenever a bigger club comes in, but treating him like a decent human being and giving him some rope to play with is far better than a stone-wall "get out of my office".
Levy isn't exactly a man-manager and, if anything, he should probably have let Harry Redknapp do the talking. Tell Modric "give us one more season, see where we're at next summer or, if you're desperate, you can leave in January."
That way, if we get these "two or three big signings", Modric may have a change of heart. Now, however, the damage is done and we have a situation that needs arresting before it spirals out of our control.
Tell Chelsea that if they meet the £35-£40m valuation this month, then he can leave. If not, he's a Spurs player next season. end of. That way, the ball is in Chelsea's court and Modric can see how far his new favourite club are prepared to go to sign him.
But it needs doing right and it needs doing quickly because at the moment, you get the feeling that the knife-edge we're sat on at the moment is in danger of slicing us in two.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Olympic stadium is a distraction from the job in hand
The club yesterday made a statement explaining their intentions to push on with a further appeal over the process by which the right to play in the Olympic Stadium was awarded to West Ham.
The statement read:
"The Club has today (Wednesday) applied to the High Court to renew its application for permission to bring a claim against the London Borough of Newham and the Olympic Park Legacy Company, the Mayor of London and Government Ministers for judicial review of their decisions underlying the bid process for the conversion of the Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Games. Under this process the Club now has the opportunity to present its case at an oral hearing at the High Court."
I'll be honest, I don't care. This whole stadium issue is not only tedious and a clear dead end but it indicates that the club is not totally focused on the top priority, which is developing our squad for next season.
We have six weeks to negotiate enough outgoing deals to fund some big improvements to the squad and to convince Luka Modric and Gareth Bale not to ply their trade elsewhere. Right now, there is no evidence of anything happening.
Yes, the club needs a bigger stadium, supporters are on season ticket waiting lists for years on end and regular folk can't get into a home game for love nor money (well, they can get in for money, but most people don't have enough of it to afford the few seats that do go on general sale). But is there really any point in having a 60,000 seater stadium full of pissed-off, embittered football fans all discussing what went wrong in the summer of 2011?
Daniel Levy is undoubtedly going to leave a long-standing legacy at Tottenham but it remains to be seen whether it will be a successful team that we can all be proud to support or whether it will be a stadium debacle that cost us our seat at the top table.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
O' Hara on the move as the board gets shirty over Modric saga
Outgoing transfer alert! We've sold Jamie O'Hara to Wolves for £5million. Is it really a coincidence that this happens immediately after the Luka Modric saga stepped up a gear?
Chairman Levy was always adamant that we need to sell before we buy and Modric's suggestion that he wants to leave has now sparked our summer into action.
The official line is that we can match Modric's ambition and are prepared to prove that by bringing in the big names necessary to mount a serious Top 4 assault next term.
If that's the case, then the O'Hara sale is a good sign that the wheels are in motion and we can expect a few more to follow relatively soon as the club look to free up funds for some major signings.
The club have also released pictures of the new home strip for next season. I'm pretty sure that the last one was meant to last the full two seasons as promised and we weren't all going to have to go and buy yet another new home shirt?
Irked or annoyed you may be, but the club have a foolproof cure for this... it's Luka Modric, in the new Spurs shirt, surely they wouldn't release a picture of him in the suave, retro-style new kit and still sell him. Look how happy he is, he must be staying. Last year's shirt? we've forgotten it already.
What everyone's keenly rejecting to notice is that, in our new away shirt Modric looks more than a little bit like he's wearing the colours of a certain local rival.
Maybe that's part of the Modric stay-put package, "If you stay and play for us, we'll let you wear a Chelsea shirt, hell, you can all wear Chelsea shirts.
Chairman Levy was always adamant that we need to sell before we buy and Modric's suggestion that he wants to leave has now sparked our summer into action.
The official line is that we can match Modric's ambition and are prepared to prove that by bringing in the big names necessary to mount a serious Top 4 assault next term.
If that's the case, then the O'Hara sale is a good sign that the wheels are in motion and we can expect a few more to follow relatively soon as the club look to free up funds for some major signings.
The club have also released pictures of the new home strip for next season. I'm pretty sure that the last one was meant to last the full two seasons as promised and we weren't all going to have to go and buy yet another new home shirt?
Irked or annoyed you may be, but the club have a foolproof cure for this... it's Luka Modric, in the new Spurs shirt, surely they wouldn't release a picture of him in the suave, retro-style new kit and still sell him. Look how happy he is, he must be staying. Last year's shirt? we've forgotten it already.
What everyone's keenly rejecting to notice is that, in our new away shirt Modric looks more than a little bit like he's wearing the colours of a certain local rival.
Maybe that's part of the Modric stay-put package, "If you stay and play for us, we'll let you wear a Chelsea shirt, hell, you can all wear Chelsea shirts.
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Redknapp urges board to keep Modric promise
Harry Redknapp says Daniel Levy has "got to stand by" his statement that the club are not prepared to sell Luka Modric at any price.
Speaking to radio station TalkSport, Redknapp suggested that any U-turn over the sale of the Croatian could plunge us into mid-table mediocrity - an exaggeration maybe, but Redknapp has now made his feelings well clear.
The gaffer said: "“It’s a happy thing to have a player like Luka Modric, who has suddenly turned into a £50million, £40million player and everyone wants him.
“We’re lucky we’ve got him and we aren’t selling him, that’s what the chairman says and that’s good enough for me.
“If we sell Luka Modric where are we going as a football club? We’ll have to accept then that we’re a middle of the table team that will finish in the top-half next season and really that’s not what the chairman wants, it’s not what I want. It’s not, most importantly, what the fans want.
To read the full statement, visit Talk Sport.
Speaking to radio station TalkSport, Redknapp suggested that any U-turn over the sale of the Croatian could plunge us into mid-table mediocrity - an exaggeration maybe, but Redknapp has now made his feelings well clear.
The gaffer said: "“It’s a happy thing to have a player like Luka Modric, who has suddenly turned into a £50million, £40million player and everyone wants him.
“We’re lucky we’ve got him and we aren’t selling him, that’s what the chairman says and that’s good enough for me.
“If we sell Luka Modric where are we going as a football club? We’ll have to accept then that we’re a middle of the table team that will finish in the top-half next season and really that’s not what the chairman wants, it’s not what I want. It’s not, most importantly, what the fans want.
To read the full statement, visit Talk Sport.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)