As the home fans celebrated around us at the end of this game the sense of injustice stank the place out and this was well before news of Balotelli apparently mistaking Parker’s head for the ball filtered through.
It’s difficult to express the breadth of emotions suffered in the last few minutes as first Defoe somehow squeezed Bale’s cross wide and then Ledley, the centre half of Immaculate Conception, made the mistake that allowed Parker’s assailant to administer the cruel coup de grace.
In added time as Bale sped towards us everyone in the away end would’ve seen in their mind’s eye what was on the cards. Richards is all size, speed and power and it took all of the Welshman’s considerable abilities to keep him at bay and the ball under control. On the far post, and on the edge of one’s vision Defoe was at full pelt a few feet ahead of Lescott and as he approached Crouchy’s piece of hallowed ground Bale slid the ball over. In a millisecond the easiest of tap-ins somehow became a lot trickier than it looked and the onrushing Spurs striker ended up in the net instead of the ball. All over the field white shirts hit the deck as the rest of the team collapsed in disbelief, an emotion shared in the stands.
The remainder of stoppage time crawled by until once again and almost unbelievably Howard Webb contrived to leave us heartbroken. His award of a penalty for a foul on a player who shouldn’t have been on the field if he’d been doing his job properly was so subtle a way to leave us feeling wronged that you just have to marvel at his evil genius. All this occurred of course after we were two down and looking dead and buried, to come back and end up taking the game to City was enough of an emotional roller coaster even without what was to follow.
It wasn’t the best of displays, we badly missed a more physical presence up front and we didn’t muster a shot on goal until we fell behind. Silva and Nasri were allowed time to weave patterns in midfield and our midget line-up looked nervous and vulnerable from corners and set plays each one of which was perfectly delivered by Silva, a player who seems to flow rather than run.
We were though a long stud away from taking all three points and given the form of City at home there are a lot of positives to take and build on. Hopefully the ten point gap down to fifth will offer Harry at least a small crumb of comfort as he peruses the paper in the court waiting room this morning.
By MF