By Myles Palmer
Spurs 3 Fiorentina 0
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Without Batistuta, Toldo and Rui Costa, all sold in the past year,Fiorentina are nothing special, but Spurs looked pretty good last night when 35,000 turned out for Bill Nicholson’s testimonial
Predictably, the crowd chanted, “STAND UP IF YOU HATE CAMPBELL!”
Hoddle always plays 3-5-2.
But last night he was playing without Anderton, Carr and Sherwood.
It was interesting to see the home debuts of Ziege, Poyet and Bunjevcevic, who is tall, slim, left-footed and plays in the middle of the back three.
Their team (3-5-2) was Sullivan; Doherty, Bunjevcevic, King; Taricco, Freund, Clemence, Poyet, Ziege ; Rebrov, Ferdinand(capt).
Bunjevcevic looked good, wanted the ball off Sullivan , used it stylishly.He might be a good buy. We shall see.
Ziege is a poser but he crosses a very good ball.
Rebrov was their worst player last night.Useless. Very disappointed with him.
Ferdinand made it 1-0 after 14 minutes when he jumped with keeper Tagliatatela, who spilled the ball. There was slight contact, not a foul in my view, and Les knocked in the loose ball.Nine times our of ten refs give a foul on these but Peter Jones didn’t, on this occasion.
For me, it was an August goal. Keepers do not have to be brave in June and July, so they lose their bottle and have to get it back by September.
Fiorentina are three weeks behind Spurs in fitness and that showed when Nuno Gomes tired at the end, after showing terrific movement.
When Neil Sullivan made a boob, coming for a ball and missing it, Marco Rossi missed a sitter. Chiesa had a lob which just beat the angle.
Then Poyet scored from a left wing corner for 2-0, hooking it neatly across the keeper from six yards. Typical Gus. Few do it better.
At £1.5 million Poyet is a steal because he is a very good 3-5-2 player.In that system can move around with a lot of freedom and get into a lot of scoring positions.
Second half, Alex Manninger was in goal and his awful defence gave him no chance when Poyet played in sub Iversen, who stabbed the ball over him from close range.
Just after that, at 9.09 pm, the chants of,”STAND UP IF YOU HATE CAMPBELL!” kicked off in the Park Lane stand.
After an hour, Simon Davies came on for Freund.This kid can play.He is very quick and skilful and covers a lot of ground. I had never seen Davies, 21, before, but he really looks like a player, so I will be following him closely this season. He had a header wide from a Ziege cross, should have scored.
I’m told he doesn’t track back.He will have to learn that, add it to his game. And soon.
The game was already lost when coach Roberto Mancini brought on his best defender, Repka, who was soon knocking players over,as always.An awesome powerhouse. If Repka is injured, Fiorentina could go down.
Second half, I was sitting next to Brian Glanville, who thinks Chiesa will be the next to be sold.
Brian translated Mancini’s press conference with relish and expertise.
“Physically, he thought Tottenham were much stronger. But you can’t give away headed goals like that.”
Would the first goal have been allowed by an Italian ref?
“I don’t know. It’s not important.”
When Mancini left, one wag called out,”Brian, can we ask you some questions?”
Overall, I saw enough to convince me that Hoddle has matured and that he can get Spurs playing good football.
As I watched them play I could imagine his training : knock it about, slick first-time pases, zippy movement, keep practicing that, build up a good rhythm, gradually do it faster and faster.
Pre-season games mean little, everyone knows that, but I had the feeling that beating Hoddle’s Tottenham this season might be harder than beating Graham’s team last season and the season before.
Since I have not seen much of Spurs this year, I’m guessing. It’s just an intuition.I just think that the players will do whatever Glenn asks them to do. Because they realise that he knows far more about football than any of them. And that is a good starting point for a coach.
Spurs are at home to Aston Villa in their first game.
Hoddle said, “I was happy with the way we passed the ball, the movement, the chances we created. There’s a lot more to come.The main event comes against Villa and they’re ahead of us in their preparation because they’re playing competitive games.”
He said that Anderton and Sherwood would be fit within seven days, but Carr and Sheringham would not be.
I think it will be interesting to see how Sheringham and Poyet, two brainy players,will gell.
Hoddle said there were several candidates for the captaincy but he needed to see how each candidate reacted in the dressing room, in meetings, in games.
“The captain has to be an extension of the coaching staff,” he added
He admitted that he was searching for a centre half and a No.2 goalkeeper,after Alan Kelly did not join them.
I wasn’t taping what he said, just scribbling it down, so I didn’t get all of it, which was a pity since he said something quite interesting about first teams and squads.
From memory, and my notes, he more or less said that the idea of a first eleven is now obsolete.
He said, “There isn’t such a thing as a first team any more -it’s a squad situation. But I don’t like to use the word rotation.”
He said that a player who comes in, to replace a player who played in the previous game,should give him something else, something as good, but not the same – that’s the way it is these days.
But of course it takes years and years to assemble a squad as good as the current Manchester United squad.
The Telegraph’s Mihir Bose gave me a lift back to Baker Street tube.
Mihir said he really enjoys the ANR articles I sometimes send him.
I told him that what’s on ANR is just things I say to friends on the phone and things they say to me.
He laughed and said, “Reading it is just like meeting you and talking to you!”
9th August 2001.