Birmingham City’s 3-0 defeat at Chelsea on Wednesday night was their first loss for more than three months. So how will they feel after two defeats in a week? Spurs go to St Andrew’s on Saturday afternoon so hopefully we’ll find out sooner rather than later.
It’s been a strange January transfer window with little Tottenham related action. The seemingly bottomless pot of money we normally take a dip into at this time of year no matter how much we’ve spent in the summer has gone awol for the moment. As I write we’re on the verge of apparently beating West Ham to the signature of a man with little pace whose best days are behind him (and no we’ve not re-re-signed Robbie Keane). I’ve not seen Eidur Gudjohnsen in action since he waved goodbye to Stamford the Lion in 2006, but then few people have as he’s not played much. He was a good player at his peak, he had great technique and vision and presumably Harry’s relying on those qualities still being there. I think I’m right in saying that Gudjohnsen’s dad took the penalty that Tony Parks so memorably saved in the UEFA Cup Final in 1984, let’s hope his lad has only the first yard in his head Sheringham style if he signs for us and isn’t seeking revenge for the whole twelve. (A bit contrived? You reckon?)
The team is hard to predict, with games coming thick and fast at the moment a few players will be carrying niggling injuries. Kranjcar was missing on Tuesday hence David Bentley’s opportunity for a spell in the shop window. He probably did enough against Fulham to keep his place should the Croatian be absent again though ideally of course we’d see a return for Aaron Lennon. As well as stability (Alex McLeish named an unchanged line-up for the tenth game in a row on Wednesday) Birmingham’s good run has been built on a solid defence and so to get a result we’ll probably need a return to form from Jermain Defoe. He’s been struggling to find space recently and also hasn’t made the most of the chances that have fallen to him. Ledley presumably won’t make it so Bassong should be back alongside Dawson.
Stuart Atwell is down to referee. It wasn’t his fault we lost to Wolves (the only other time he’s reffed us this season); his eccentric refereeing was a talking point after the game though.
We got thumped last time we played at Birmingham. The 4-1 loss followed the defeat of Chelsea the weekend before in the League Cup Final. At the time there was much puff about how we were on the march to great things under Ramos; the result at St Andrew’s turned out to be a better indicator of things to come than the Wembley one. There’s a lot of hot air around at the moment as well as the players take it in turns to talk about 4th place being the target, personally I wish they’d keep quiet and stop offering hostages to fortune. Blues away is another example of ‘it’s games like these we’ve got to win if we’re serious about a Champions League spot.’ We’ve not fared too well in a lot of the ‘games like these…etc’ and this is one of the tougher ones. A win would be great but given the form of the home team, a draw wouldn’t be too disappointing.
By MF
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