Yesterday’s David Hytner AVB article in The Guardian didn’t paint a pretty picture for those of us hoping that the last few goal barren weeks have just been part of an awkward growing phase as this team grows from boy to manhood.
Disgruntlement has arrived in the Bahamas apparently, borne on a raft made up of the manager’s recent inability to take public responsibility, some grumbling amongst the players and the lack of a quick return on investment. The defeat to West Ham was the bottle across the bows that launched the craft; Joe Lewis didn’t sanction the triple breaking of our transfer record in the summer so that he could watch us get dumped on by Allardyce’s ‘Amsters. Villas-Boas is under pressure to get some decent results and quickly.
You believe the papers at your peril of course. ‘Everyone happy at Spurs as they all pull together in search of the right formula’ won’t sell advertising space. ‘Tottenham’s impressive qualification for the knockout stages of the Europa League when added to an impending home League Cup quarter final and only being 2 points from a Moneybags League spot with a quarter of the season gone despite the massive rebuild and swathe of injuries shows good progress’ won’t get the online comments into four figures. There’s no doubt that no club should be completely happy after some of the results we’ve had of late but whether they’re enough to check the pay-off clause in AVB’s contract is open to argument. We’ll find out what the truth is one day. Maybe.
Something else that’s been printed regularly in the last few days that seems a tad far-fetched is that Tromso is the ‘Paris of the North’. I don’t care how big their version of the Blackpool Tower is, it seems unlikely to me. The three hundred odd Spurs fans who’ve got tickets for tonight’s game will only have half an hour or so to see the town in its full glory, drinking from dawn until dusk has always been an ambition of mine, I suspect it’s old hat in northern Norway.
We’ve taken some youngsters but left some oldies behind including a fully fit Defoe suggesting that he’s either starting against Man United, being kept back to be sold or has been caught muttering behind AVB’s back once too often. Could be any of them the way things are going at the moment. Maybe he’s an aversion to the bigger bounce you get on an artificial surface? It’s probably not bigger than Roberto Soldado’s to the likely temperature at kick-off mind.
I’m not even going to guess the team, partly because I get it wrong so often and partly because guessing what’s happening inside AVB’s head right now is probably not a good idea.
The kick off is at 6pm, the officials are from Ukraine. COYS.
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